National Consultancy – Digital Public Goods (DPG) Technical Consultant (For Sierra Leone Nationals only)

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, innovation

Please access UNICEF Sierra Leone information here 

How can you make a difference? 

Purpose and objective of the assignment:

As part of Sierra Leone’s role as a co-champion of the DPGA, and to strengthen the existing collaboration between UNICEF and DSTI on DPGs, this assignment aims to:

A) Provide product development support to selected DPGs created and/or curated by DSTI (60%).

B) Provide open-source-community management support to the same projects to strengthen local capacity & talent (40%).

The Digital Public Goods (DPG) Technical Consultant reports to the Innovation Specialist for general guidance and direction.

Scope of Work:

Under the general guidance and supervision of the Innovation Specialist, the post has the following key responsibilities including, but are not limited to:

• Provide product development/programming support to digital public goods such as, OpenG2P, GoSL USSD Services Platform
• Coordinate the engagement and technical cooperation with the UNICEF Office of Innovation.
• Support any solution development to be prepared to meet the DPG Standard and to be included in the DPG Registry.
• Provide technical assistance to each solution as outlined in the description of the assignment below.
• Provide opensource community management support to digital public goods projects to strengthen local capacity & talent.
• Work with other UNICEF sections such as Health and Education and support in the delivery of cross programmatic priorities (eg through Hackathon)
• Identify key open-source community organizations, academia and/or private sector to be engaged in each of the projects
• Advocate for the adoption of open-source best practices in the development and maintenance of these projects’ software repositories
• Develop and deploy clear and structured documentation for all project repositories
• Develop, deploy and manage issue and pull request templates for each of the projects and position these projects overall to welcome external contributions
• Regularly review and incorporate community contributions functions/accountabilities:
• Underpin UNICEF’s role as a convener to enable the scale-up of the DPGA at country level.
• Maintain collaboration with government of Sierra Leone and identify new opportunities for engaging other stakeholders to contribute to the DPGA for Sierra Leone.
• Perform other related duties as assigned by the supervisor to ensure the success of the team, as needed.

Please see attached ToR for detailed information:  ToR-Consultant-DPG-Innovation-National.pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

• A university degree in Technology, Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering or related field plus 7 years in a relevant field e.g. software development

Given the bespoke nature of this role and the new and emerging nature of Digital Public Goods relevant experience will be prioritized over specific qualifications. Therefore, a minimum of 3-5 years of experience working in:

• The social innovation ecosystem engagement, mapping, entrepreneurship support programs, open-source development and working with and mentoring tech entrepreneurs
• Knowledge of frontier technology, open-source technology and digital public goods are highly valued.
• Familiarity with Sierra Leone’s developer community organizations/landscape.
• Experience in programming languages including Java, Python, and Golang and familiarity with different frameworks such as Java/ Spring & Python/ Django are an asset.
• Previous experience developing projects in the open and the ability to demonstrate an active GitHub or Gitlab profile is an asset.
• Ability to work with a diverse team in a rapidly changing work environment and adapt to unforeseen changes.
• Experience working in the social impact space, international development or equivalent.
• Fluency in English is required, strong written and verbal competency is necessary.
• Experience working in a developing country required, working in the West African region is considered as an asset

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).   

To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.